Notable collections

Sheet music depicting African Americans, or written by African American composers.

Books from the Aldine Press, founded in 1494 by Aldus Manutius and continued by his grandson, Aldo, until his death in 1597.

The private photography collection of Miss Elsie Anderson, who spent seventeen years in China as a Secretary for Young Women's Christian Association of China (YWCA) 中華基督教女青年會 between 1920s-1940s.

A collection of collections, originating from one of the most extensive private libraries of materials related to the Baha'i Faith, includes thousands of books, letters, newspaper clippings, photographs and early Baha’i publications from many countries and in various languages, from Urdu to Japanese to Greenlandic.

The Blanche Thebom Collection consists of scores, correspondence, publicity, production notes, and media from the mezzo-soprano's post-Met career as teacher and director.

The Bob Fitch photography archive is the complete archive of activist photographer Bob Fitch of Watsonville, California.

Chinese comic books (连环画) are a popular medium to entertain and to educate the public in China. The collection contains about 300 comic books, the majority published after 1949, from 50s to 70s and during the Cultural Revolution.

Over his lifetime, Denis Condon (1933-2012) amassed a collection of over 7500 piano rolls and ten instruments. The collection contains rolls of important composers of the period, all playing their own works.

The Donald Pippin Collection consists primarily of Pippin's English translations of opera librettos available as pdf files.

This collection consists of over 1200 items, published roughly between 1800 and 1980. It contains 845 pamphlets, 110 journals and periodicals, and 325 books.

Florence Underwood studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College in the 1940s. The collection consists primarily of her written music and the research she conducted to write the music. In addition, scrapbooks, personal, and legal papers make up a portion of the collection.

George Antheil was an avant-garde composer and pianist whose performances caused riots. The collection consists of George Antheil's correspondence. All but one of the letters are photocopies; the dates range from 1920 to 1959.

Correspondence, blueprints, drawings, photographs, and other records relating to the planning, design and construction of the campus home of Professor and Mrs. Paul R. Hanna designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

This is the collection of former Yale professor Herbert Matter, known for his films, photography, and experimental art printing.

An ever-expanding collection of books printed before 1501. Stanford Special Collections currently holds about 240 specimens, and there are additional books housed at the Lane Medical Library.

The James Schwabacher Collection consists of sound recordings, correspondence, scores, scrapbooks, clippings, programs, teaching material and other papers from San Francisco philanthropist and lyric tenor James Schwabacher.

There have been many publications related to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, but among the most poignant are the efforts of authors to explain this incident to children.  Stanford is currently building a collection of these materials.

Stanford has over 400 Japanese textbooks from the early twentieth century (and some more recent ones also).

The collection includes correspondence (1835-1897), financial papers, musical compositions, and other papers.

Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. The collection includes correspondence with the Katilius family; draft and published poems; drawings; and photographs.

The collection includes over 100 music manuscripts by Spanish composer Julio de Osma.

The Ken Ackerman Collection consists of broadcast recordings of live jazz performances from the 1950s and 60s, captured at various clubs in San Francisco, particularly Club Hangover.

Eighteenth and nineteenth century books of English literature, international politics, and illustrated works.

The KSFO collection consists of audiovisual material and ephemera from this San Francisco radio station's years owned by Golden West Broadcasting, 1956-1983.

Lucie King Harris was an arts patron, a philanthropist, and an ardent horsewoman. The Lucie King Harris Books for Music Fund was the first endowed fund in Music at Stanford University. This collection of piano/vocal and solo piano music belonging to Lucie King Harris.

The Mario Ancona Collection includes photographs, memorabilia, sound recordings, and more related to Ancona's career.

Scores of operas, symphonic works, chamber music, and choral works by major composers from the 17th to 20th centuries.

The MARL collection consisting of nearly 60 linear feet of materials is dedicated to the study of all aspects of musical acoustics.

A hidden jewel of the Japanese collection is the vast assortment of newspapers held at

Over 2000 titles published during in the 1940s and 1950s, held by few (if any) other libraries in the world. Important primary sources for scholars of the 20th century, the titles cover topics such as colonial territories, nuclear radiation, communism, labor, industrial mobilization, agriculture.

San Francisco city views, public buildings, and landscapes, as well as San Jose, Stanford University, the U.S. Navy Yard at Mare Island, San Diego, and San Luis Rey.

The Bonelli Collection includes letters, programs, scores, scrapbooks, recordings, posters, and news clippings.

Open reel tape recordings made by documentary filmmaker, photographer, ethnographer, and historian Richard Sterling Finnie.

The Richard Maxfield Collection consists of electronic music written by Maxfield on open reel tape from 1959 to 1964.

Tenor Mario Chamlee sang at the leading opera houses in the United States and abroad. His wife Ruth was a soprano and noted singing teacher.

The East Asia Library has a robust collection of nearly 400 award-winning Japanese-language books for children.

The East Asia Library has a collection of nearly 550 Japanese woodblock print (hanpon) books printed during the 18th and 19th century.

Thirty-six digitized texts, written in French between 1716 and 1835, investigate the mysterious perimeters of knowledge beyond Locke.

Taube-Baron collection of Jewish studies and culture, from the library of Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron.

The Venezky Collection contains primers and readers published in the U.S. between the end of the eighteenth century through the early decades of the twentieth century.

2,532 individual pieces of sheet music, sheet music lithographs, and music related broadsides from the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries.